Cage of Fire (Parallel Magic Book 1) Read online

  “What? You can’t be serious.” The hall of souls was barred even against spirit mages. Besides, if it hadn’t been, breaking in there would mean execution. I wanted no part in it. “People have died for much less. Besides, won’t another Death King take his place?”

  “Not if it goes as planned,” he said. “Whoever holds the soul of the Death King will be able to wield the might of his entire army. Someone came close to succeeding at stealing it recently, but he and his pet spirit mage thwarted them.”

  “Why not just ask the Death King to help your cause rather than stealing his soul?” Incredulity crept into my voice. “I thought he and Miles knew one another.”

  “I told you, that was a long time ago.” He shook his head. “The Death King is a ruthless killer. Miles remembers him as someone different. He’ll come around in the end, I’m sure, but it won’t be long before our window of opportunity closes.”

  What the hell? “Look, I didn’t sign up to commit murder. Which is basically what you’re doing, even if he is an immortal death lord.”

  “Think of the big picture, Bria,” he said. “The Death King is a liar and a murderer, and none of us has ever managed to get as close to him as you are right now. You might save lives if you help us.”

  “My big picture involves finding Tay and getting the hell away from this.” I grabbed the door handle, and this time, he didn’t stop me. “Have fun with your new toys.”

  I yanked open the door and climbed the spiralling staircase down to the bottom. There was no safety rail, and the lack of lighting didn’t help the fear that I’d take one wrong step and plummet to my death. Thankfully, I reached solid ground, found the side entrance, and crept out into the night.

  Liv wasn’t outside, and the node I’d come in by glowed brightly, guiding me across the square. Did anyone else know Shawn was in the citadel? The vampires ruled this city, but they mostly left the mages alone, and even they had the good sense to avoid trespassing in the monoliths the spirit mages had built back when they’d first founded the Parallel. While I understood why Shawn would feel the need to protect his fellow spirit mages, he and the others must have been born into regular mage families. After all, the Order hadn’t left any spirit mages walk free.

  I trod further down the road, towards the node. If I hopped through to Elysium, I could go home and look for Tay, or verify that Shawn had been telling the truth…

  Shit. The node wasn’t unoccupied. Several figures gathered around it, their spindly arms reaching into the current of energy. Those weren’t humans, but fleshless beings covered in maggoty white skin. Revenants, the vampires’ less attractive, less powerful cousins, who fed on the nodes like regular vampires fed on blood.

  One by one, they turned in my direction, eyes glowing with the light of the node.

  “Don’t mind me.” I backed up a step. “I’m just leaving.”

  Three of the revenants lunged at me. Fire sprang to my hands, but I hadn’t been prepared for them to move so damn fast. Two landed on me and my back hit the ground under their weight. I gagged on the stench of rotting flesh. Kicking one of them off me, I rolled upright and spotted something glinting in the revenant’s hand. The pendant.

  “Hey, give that back!”

  I ran in pursuit, in the same instant as someone exited a building further down the road.

  “Get outta here!” bellowed a deep voice. A blast of air shot down the alley, knocking the revenants in all directions. Unfortunately, the pissed-off local had hit me, too, and I flew back a few feet, out of reach of the pendant.

  I caught my balance and sprinted after the fleeing revenant, but the ground abruptly ran out beneath my feet. Flames leapt from my palms as I tumbled down, and then the revenants and I landed in a confused tangle of fire and burning flesh.

  Dazed and bruised, I looked up at the rungs of a ladder. Oh, right. The revenants lived in the tunnels under the city during the day, so it made sense that there’d be a way downstairs near the node. They were also as flammable as vampires. One of them crawled away from me, half its arm missing, flames licking at its foul skin.

  Just where I needed to end the night—stuck at the bottom of a pit with my pendant buried somewhere under a pile of flailing, dying revenants. Holding my breath to stave off the foul stench, I clambered to my feet. I conjured a flame in front of my face in an attempt to see my surroundings and spotted two revenants loping away from their burning brethren. A glint in their hands drew my eyes.

  “Get back here!” I broke into a sprint, using the fire in my hands to light my path. The revenants hissed and recoiled away from the flames, as I pursued them through the darkness. My feet caught on something solid—something alive—and I landed hard on my knees. “Ow.”

  The body groaned. “Ow!”

  I knew that voice. “Miles? What are you doing down here?”

  He lifted his head. “I could ask you the same question.”

  “Revenants stole my pendant.” I rose to my feet. “Shit. I have to catch them up.”

  “Pendant?” He staggered to his feet, wincing. “What pendant?”

  “The one I put the transporter spell in.” I headed down the tunnel in pursuit of the fleeing revenants, and Miles followed close behind me.

  “They kicked me in the head on the way through. That’s why I was lying down there. Until I heard you.” He drew spirit energy into his hands, lighting the way. “You used the transporter to leave the castle?”

  “Well, yes,” I said. “I wasn’t about to let a good opportunity go to waste.”

  “Looks like I had good timing, then.”

  I arched a brow. “Not sure getting thrown into the dark by a bunch of zombies counts as good timing to most people.”

  “I’ve had worse nights.”

  “Don’t speak too soon.” I trod forward into the darkness. “Bloody things are like magpies. They have no use for a transporter spell.”

  “We’ll get it back.” He advanced at my side, limping a little. “I don’t suppose you have a healing cantrip on you?”

  “Possibly, but all my cantrips were inside the pendant.”

  “Bugger.” He stumbled, and I saw blood on his face which hadn’t been obvious beforehand. Despite all the trouble he’d caused me, I didn’t want him to die down here in the darkness.

  “Hang onto me.” I took his arm, trying to ignore the ashes and grime all over his coat. I was covered in the same crap, after all.

  He shot me a smile. “I’m glad you decided to help me. Thought you might leave me behind instead.”

  “Don’t speak too soon.” I peered ahead, where the path forked. The revenants had gone down one of those tunnels. “Left or right?”

  “Right. They left a trail.”

  “So they did.” Bits of dead skin littered the path. Lovely. I turned, still holding Miles’s arm. I wouldn’t lie, it felt much steadier than going it alone.

  The revenants were only inches away, but they had company. A number of worms filled the space within the tunnel, fleshy shapes covered in scale-like armour. It seemed the remaining beasts from the Death King’s territory had mobilised underground. Needle-like teeth filled their mouths, and the ground trembled lightly as they moved.

  “Shit.” I halted, trying to figure out how in hell to get to the revenants without walking into the nest of worms. Short of learning to fly, that is. “Okay, I’m gonna jump.”

  Miles’s hands lit up with spirit magic. “Or we could do it this way.”

  The ground rumbled beneath our feet. “Watch out. If we piss them off, the whole tunnel might collapse.”

  “Fair point.” He lowered his hands, treading towards the revenants. The beasts were too stupid to realise they were a few seconds from being eaten alive by giant worms. I’d prefer not to have to dig inside one of those monsters to get my pendant back, either.

  A hiss rang through the tunnel, and then, in unison, the worms turned in our direction. Uh-oh.

  “I think they’re already pissed off.�
� He backed up a step, catching the wall for balance, as the ground gave another almighty heave. “Shit…”

  The ground lurched under our feet as the worms moved in a tide of spikes and teeth. I dodged between two of them, blasting fire at their spiky hides, but another grazed my shoulder and a fourth wrapped around my ankle. There must be at least a dozen in here.

  Miles caught my arm and yanked me into a side tunnel. I kicked the worm off my ankle, and a pair of teeth snapped on the spot where I’d just been standing. “Whoa.”

  “The revenants are on the other side of those worms,” he said. “We’ll have to go through a shortcut.”

  “Fine by me.” I edged down the tunnel and hurried around a corner, only to find another spiked worm blocking my path. The revenants continued to amble along, but the ground heaved beneath their feet, burying their spindly legs to the waist. “Hang on.”

  I reared back and aimed a burst of fire at the revenants’ feet. The momentum sent them spinning into the air, and in another flying leap, I landed atop one of the worms. Its spiked back dug into my legs, but I leaned as far as I could and caught the revenant’s scrawny arm in my hand.

  The ground gave another tremble, and Miles shouted my name. I snagged the pendant by my fingertips and leapt into the air, just as Miles blasted spirit magic into the nearest worm.

  The worm recoiled, causing the tunnel to tremble warningly. I landed beside Miles, and we ran, down the tunnel and away from our pursuers.

  Miles halted, breathless, beside a set of stairs leading aboveground. His face was pale and blood-streaked, while both of us were covered in earth.

  “Damn worms,” he said. “What brought them here? I’ve never seen them in a city before.”

  “The Death King’s Earth Element,” I said. “He set them loose on us in the trial.”

  “That’d explain why they’re targeting you,” he said. “You moved damn fast back there.”

  “Thanks,” I said to him. “You saved my neck.”

  “Anytime,” he said. “As long as you got what you came for.”

  I held up the pendant, breathing a sigh of relief when I found the transporter was still inside it. I then extracted a healing cantrip and tossed it to Miles before looping the string around my neck.

  “What would have happened if the revenants had used the transporter on the node?” I said.

  “The Death King would have had a worse night than us.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, right. I bet he doesn’t care about revenants. It’s the other contenders who’d have to deal with the fallout. Though I reckon some of them would be jealous of the transporter. I didn’t even see one in the Death King’s private storeroom.”

  “Those things aren’t easy to find,” he said. “Pretty sure they stopped making them a long time ago.”

  “How’d Shawn get one, then?”

  “He has a knack for finding rare things.”

  Like that transporter in the citadel. That was a bigger version of the one he’d given me. Not that I’d seen it in action yet.

  “In what way?” I reached the ladder first and began to climb. “He was acting weird tonight. He kept ranting about the plight of spirit mages and the war.”

  Miles swore. “Tell me later. Someone’s up there.”

  I glanced up the ladder and spotted a figure above our heads. “That’s not a revenant.”

  “Damn right it isn’t,” said the man who’d hit the revenants with air magic earlier. “What’re you?”

  “Fire mage,” I said.

  He grunted. “Not with the House, I assume.”

  I damn near fell back down the ladder, but Miles caught my leg from behind. “Go on. We’ll talk aboveground.”

  We reached the alley, which was thankfully revenant-free. My clothes were covered in bits of ash and decaying revenant, but at least I hadn’t suffered any serious injuries. “Is there a representative of the Houses here? In Arcadia, I mean?”

  “You’re not from here, huh,” the man said. “Not as such. The vamps keep the Houses’ wardens out of the city, but they keep sending people in anyway, looking for rogue mages.”

  Uh-oh. “What kind of rogues?”

  “Anyone who fits their description.” He beckoned us towards a squat building with narrow windows titled ‘the Withered Oak’. “This is a safe house. You shouldn’t linger out on the street.”

  Wait. I knew that name. The Withered Oak… this was the place the former Fire Element had been writing to. “A safe house for whom?”

  “Any mages with cash enough to pay for a room. Why?”

  Damn. That meant the person Davies had been writing to had probably left a long time ago. We wouldn’t find any traces of them in here. “No reason.”

  The door opened, and our group stepped aside as a tall cloaked figure exited the building. In the brief gap before the door closed, I glimpsed someone else in the corridor within… a very familiar someone. Sledge. What in hell was he doing in there?

  “You mean any mage?” I asked the man. “Like that big dude over there? You know he’s one of the potential Fire Element contenders, right?”

  “We protect the confidentiality of our guests.” He narrowed his eyes at Miles. “I know what you are, spirit mage.”

  Miles frowned. “Hey, I’m not here to make trouble.”

  “Is there any way to contact the mages in another city from here?” I interjected. “Because a friend of mine went missing.”

  He grunted. “Mages go missing all the time. The vamps don’t care.”

  It’s not the vampires I’m worried about. “Never mind. I’m off.”

  “Wait.” Miles stepped after me. “Sorry. Other mages aren’t exactly our biggest fans.”

  “Shawn said as much.” I scanned the street, but the other mage who’d left the Withered Oak had gone. Must have hopped through the node. “I just saw one of the other contenders in there. Guess I’m not the only one who left the castle tonight.”

  “Who?”

  “You wouldn’t know him,” I said. “Is it true that the Houses are planning on incarcerating all mages who won’t play by their rules.”

  “Nothing more than rumour at this stage,” he said.

  “Shawn disagrees.”

  “Shawn is paranoid.” He drew in a breath. “Look, you ought to get off the street at this hour.”

  “Thanks for giving me a hand back there,” I said. “I appreciate it. But I have to get back home.”

  “Home meaning Elysium?” He eyed my rucksack.

  “That’s where I was going, but the revenants got in my way at the node,” I said. “Do you live in Elysium?”

  “I do,” he said. “I’ll come, but if we see anyone from the House of Fire, you’ll have to head back to the castle.”

  “Relax, I have the transporter.” And more importantly, the enemy, whoever it was, would likely have given up searching Elysium for me by now. So would Striker, for that matter.

  Miles and I approached the node and stepped through, landing in a dark alleyway. I tensed at the sound of movement on the street, but the footsteps passed by without stopping.

  “Nobody’s looking for us,” he said, in a low voice. “We’re okay.”

  “All right.” I released a breath. “Let’s do this.”

  The dim night made it hard to see our surroundings. While the spirit mages who’d created the Parallel had also created a mirror of the night sky to go with it, it was only a pale reflection of the starry backdrop on Earth, and the faint shape of the moon gave little to see by. I conjured the embers of a flame in my hands while Miles conjured spirit magic in his own hands. Since we had to extinguish the lights every time movement stirred nearby, we made slower progress than I’d have liked.

  Finally, we reached the street where our old bolt hole was located. From the outside, the place was deserted, but I still approached slowly, the flames in my hands dimmed. Quietly, we entered the house where Tay and I had once made our home. No traces remained of any life inside, as
I’d feared. I scanned the empty rooms, an unpleasant chill racing through my body.

  “Shawn said her bag already disappeared…”

  “Might’ve been taken as evidence,” he said.

  “That’s what I said.” I entered the living room, which was bare of furniture aside from a collapsed old couch we’d found in a pile of junk in the street one day. A glint caught my eye in the corner of the room. I walked that way, crouching down to see what it was.

  A cantrip. I lifted it up, holding it to the light, but it was too dark to make out the markings on it.

  Miles trod closer. “What is it?”

  “I can’t read it in this lighting,” I said. “Shawn didn’t find this when he came back.”

  Had it not been there? Or had he simply overlooked it?

  A rustling sounded, and the door rattled gently in its frame.

  Miles tensed. “Someone’s outside.”

  “Damn.” If they were outside the door, they’d definitely heard us by now. I conjured fire to my hand and marched into the hall.

  Yanking the door open, I crashed headlong into a… vampire. Oh, shit. Another of Striker’s people looked down at me, fangs exposed.

  “You,” he growled.

  “Surprise,” I said. “Where’s Tay?”

  “Your friend gave us the slip,” he growled. “Care to tell us where she is?”

  “I wouldn’t if I knew.” Flames flickered from my hands. “Care to tell me what you know about her disappearance?”

  “I think you’re lying.” His hand shot out, fast—except I moved faster, blasting him from behind with flaming hands.

  Brightness engulfed his body devouring it within a few seconds, and the pile of ashes which had once been a vampire scattered on the breeze.

  Miles’s eyes widened. “How’d you move that fast?”

  “I worked with Striker for years. I know all about dodging around vampires.” I stepped over the neat pile of ashes. “We should go before more of them come along.”

  He shot me a sideways look. “I’m not gonna pry into how you learnt to fight like that, but I have to admit that when I picked you to send in as a spy, I got more than I bargained for.”